Discovery, innovation and education

MEDIA RELEASE

November 7  2007

Discovery, innovation and education  | Info session  | Friday Nov 9  Wintec

In early 2008 the Otago Polytechnic, with support from the Ministry  of the Environment, will be launching SHaC 09 - New Zealand’s inaugural

Sustainable Habitat Challenge.

SHaC 09 co-ordinators will be travelling to tertiary organisations  in November to introduce the Challenge to staff, students, local council members and other relevant agencies. Come along to a session in your region to find out more.

Better solutions – SHaC 09 is a national challenge for tertiary organisations that aims to develop sustainable solutions for participating teams, industries, communities and sponsors. The Challenge is about process and decision making as much as it is about house building. We also hope to find sustainable building approaches that can be easily adopted by New Zealanders.

Working together – Teamwork and collaboration are key to the challenge and will involve people working across a number of perceived and realistic boundaries: students and staff; students across departments and disciplines; tertiary organisations such as polytechnics and universities; local authorities and teams; teams and local industry and business; teams and the community. Whilst SHaC 09 is competitive in nature, and the best responses to the brief will win prizes, an emphasis of SHaC 09 is sharing knowledge and successes with each other and the communities we live in.

Discovery, innovation and education – We’re all learning to be more sustainable and SHaC 09 has learning as its top priority. We hope that by participating in the Challenge lecturers will integrate sustainability into their coursework, that students will graduate with sustainability at the core of their

values and that together their projects will educate businesses, industry, local authorities and their

communities in sustainable living.

HOW IT WILL WORK ?

Students and their lecturers will research, design and build a sustainable home over a period of 18 months. The design brief will contain some guidelines, but there are 3 main criteria:

1. Projects will need to be developed in the most sustainable way possible

2. Teams will need to fundraise for the build themselves (although each team will be allocated a small stipend after successfully registering)

3. All houses will need to meet all required building consents

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In early 2008 the Otago Polytechnic will be launching SHaC 09 (the Sustainable Habitat Challenge) to tertiary organisations around New Zealand. The Challenge for a potential Hamilton-based teams will be to build a high impact home that creates little impact on the planet.

SHaC 09 will ask collaborative teams of staff and students from polytechnics and universities around the country, and including Hamilton, to research, design and build a house - using less resources and more sustainable practices - over a period of 18 months.

Tertiary organisations around the country are finding out how to get involved. An information session about SHaC 09 will be delivered in Hamilton and is open to polytechnic and university staff and students and other interested people.

Wintec – Friday November 9, 12pm

Room C117

Main Wintec Campus

For location visit: http://www.wintec.ac.nz/index.asp?pageID=2145821751

Ends

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